Design Portfolio Tips For New Designers

Design Portfolio Tips

Your design portfolio is your passport if you’re hungry for a career in the world of design. I’ve met many recruiters I didn’t particularly like, but I agreed with the one who said something along those lines. It’s true. Nail your portfolio, and you’ll not just get you’re foot in the door with one email – but likely land the job you want most. Fail to nail your portfolio, and prepare for a job on the outskirts of design (designing nothing) – which I imagine is not what you want. You want to be centre stage. Sketching. Prototyping. Solving problems. Launching products, with the title of Designer. I get it – so hopefully this post can help you out with some design portfolio tips.

Paying It Forward (From Some Big Hitters)

I don’t pretend to know it all. I’m not a Design Director. I’m not a Design Manager. However, I’ve built a decent network over the last 8 years and had direct feedback and design portfolio tips from some pretty big hitters from the likes of Nike, IDEO, Seymourpowell, Fuseproject, Ziba, Native, Johnson & Johnson, Dyson, Joseph Joseph and more. I’ve had interviews at a lot of design businesses in the UK and want to compress some of this learning to help others.

Talk @ New Designers 2016

With this aim, I delivered a talk at this year’s New Designers Exhibition, partnering with Alex Brownless from Arts Thread to share some of these insights. I’ve been reviewing graduate portfolios at New Designers with Arts Thread for the last few years, and it’s clear there is a gap between what lecturers are telling students, and what employers want. So, from the generous feedback I’ve received on my own portfolio and career journey, here’s the talk of me passing some of that on to the grads at this year’s New Designers Exhibition.